I participated in countless meetings where no one dared to ask essential questions. Participants would ask vague, complex queries, pretending to understand the topic at hand. Others would respond in the same unclear way - yet another unproductive meeting leaving everyone involved more confused than enlightened. What if someone dared to ask a simple question like: What do you mean by X? How does X bring us closer to Y? What do we expect when we reach the Y?

A legacy production line in a factory is not easily “abstractable”. Putting an IT server on the shop floor won’t cut it. To provide business value, I would suggest starting with the installation of sensors having independent connectivity. This way, we can quickly begin to gather operational data and transfer it to the backend system. That initial visibility provides a significant outcome of its own. Independent sensors work in the read-only mode.

“I do not know” - this answer differentiates experienced professionals from the rest. That single statement makes me trust the person I am working with. It also makes me value their guidance considerably more. When you openly state that you do not know something, it makes people respect you far more. As a Junior Developer, I felt significant pressure that I should know all the correct answers. I feared admitting the lack of knowledge would decrease my value among team members.

Modern solutions utilize distributed infrastructure to deliver business value. Manual management of those assets is error-prone, time-consuming, and does not scale. Fortunately, we often leverage a virtual infrastructure offered by the cloud providers. One of the benefits of a cloud is that we can describe it using code. That approach is called Infrastructure as Code (IaC). ​ ​What benefits does IaC offer?​ ​ IaC enables using agile software development methodology to describe and manage infrastructure.

This diagram represents the steps required to transform a self-storage business into a global trusted partner. IoT provides tools for that change, but the transformation requires more than simply installing shiny devices. When we transform an enterprise, we change how it operates and offers services. That is a mental shift rather than a technical undertaking. Static version of the above diagram: link You can find the recording of my live stream on this topic on YouTube:

I’ve got a new IoT companion :) Unfortunately, our cooperation is not as smooth as I had hoped, but we are slowly getting along. That brings me to the following question: In what cases are simulating devices good enough, and when must we use real hardware? I often simulate IoT devices because they are managed using software that enables: Fast initial setup. Efficient prototyping. Load testing of any number of units.